The Trade in Death: The Royal Funerals in England, 1685-1830

Abstract

IN RECENT YEARS the history of death has become a subject of much research and debate. It has, however, received but passing notice by the historian of eighteenth-century England. The work of Philippe Aries, Pierre Chaunu, Robert Favre, Michelle Vovelle, Jacqueline Thibaut-Payen, and others has amply demonstrated that such a topic provides an excellent focus for describing and analyzing mental attitudes, and illuminates entirely new areas in the social, economic, and cultural history of the particular period studied.1 This latter dimension is particularly evident from a study of the more than thirty royal funerals that took place in England from the late seventeenth century to the end of the Georgian period. Royal coronations and royal weddings were not the only occasions that provided an opportunity for the commemorative ware trade to flourish; the entrepreneur moved in to reap commercial gain at the time of a royal death as well. And there was a ready market to be exploited. Also, a close examination of the changes in protocol for general and court mourning provides an opportunity to examine in